Here’s a full analysis of the poem ‘Muliebrity’ by Sujata Bhatt, tailored towards GCSE/IGCSE students but also suitable for those studying at a higher level.
Includes
VOCABULARY
STORY / SUMMARY
SPEAKER / VOICE
LANGUAGE
STRUCTURE / FORM
CONTEXT
THEMES
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CIE IGCSE Poetry Anthology
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Muliebrity
“I have thought so much about the girl
who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket...”
Sujata Bhatt
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to copyright)
VOCABULARY
Muliebrity — A noun that we use to describe someone or something that exhibits feminine or womanly
traits.
Maninagar — An area of Ahmedabad city in the Gujarat region of India.
STORY / SUMMARY
The speaker tells us that she has thought a lot about a girl who gathered cow
dung along the road where she used to live in India, passing by a temple. The
memory of this girl is mixed with other memories that appear in the form of
scents — road dust, canna lilies, monkey breath, washed clothes, and dust
from crows’ wings — the speaker again thinks of the girl. She wants to use
her as a symbol or metaphor for feminine power and beauty, but something
in her is resistant to this, so instead, she just writes this poem about her to
commemorate her without exactly turning her into a metaphor.
, SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker of the poem uses a nostalgic tone, looking back into the past
memories she had as a young child, particularly those centered around her
home and the girl who collects cow dung on the road. She is a little confused
about why her mind keeps returning back to this image and feels that the girl
is somehow powerful and significant, important to her personally and also
important to all of us — yet, at the same time she is an individual human who
should not be turned into a stereotypical metaphor or symbol of muliebrity
(womanhood).
LANGUAGE FEATURES
Visual imagery — most of the visual imagery in the poem is centered around the girl: her “wide, round
basket”, “the way she / moved her hands and her waist”. The most important image is “the greatness
/ and power glistening through her cheekbones”, an image which comes towards the end of the poem
as if Bhatt has been withholding her impression. It finally shows the proper attitude of respect and awe
that she gives, as a child, to this girl and her lowly work.
Olfactory imagery — interestingly, most of the imagery that comes flooding back to the poet in memory
is smell based, or “olfactory”. She remembers the intermingling smells of road dirt, canna lilies (a type
of lily that symbolises purity and holiness), wet clothes - some natural and some man made smells that
combine together to give her the scent of her hometown in India. The “dust from the crows” wings’
smells different from the road dust, an interesting and specific observation that suggests the poet
noticed even at a young age how dust and earth from different places can have a different feeling or
scent (as the crow would have traveled there from another land). This makes a statement on the nature
of travel and perhaps shows how Bhatt is observing the differences between the memories of her
childhood and her current life.
Anaphora — the phrase “I have thought so much” is repeated, demonstrating the way in which the
memory is difficult for Bhatt to process or fully speak about and understand. We realise also towards the
end of the poem that part of this difficulty is in being properly respectful of the girl and not turning her
into a stereotype or symbol for all women, but treating her as her own individual person and character,
at that place and moment in time.
Adjective — the word “nice” is used in an almost negative sense here, the poet is reluctant to give us
the “nice image” of the girl in her memory because it seems disrespectful or not grand enough, she is
worried that the awe she felt at the girl and her work is not going to communicate easily in words and
that we might just interpret her as a basic symbol of womanhood rather than a unique and powerful
individual.
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